------------------------------------Welcome-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear all,
Thank you all for coming during such late time in the evening and hear me talk about my research project.
As I mentioned, I am interested in looking for two undergrads to join for summer and possibly beyond.
I wish to make the recruitment process a rewarding experience for everyone who approached me. Basically I am trying to do some intro to our lab and "crash course of metabolic engineering". Before you ever decide to jump in and join our lab, I wish to go through these papers with you guys, at least give you a taste of what it feels like to be a metabolic engineer.
Hopefully along the way some of you might become interested enough in our field and get ready to roll up your sleeves and try something real.
I wish to describe our lab, Joint Bioenergy Institute a bit more, hopefully help you decide the pros and cons:
Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) is definitely THE best place to work in under all academic circumstances. Its exceptional working environment (great view), huge fleet of supporting staffs (there are specialized people managing chemicals, lab supplies) and high quality in-house instruments (most of them are over 1 million dollars) belittles any labs on campus.
Our CEO, Prof. Jay Keasling is one of the founding father of the field "Synthetic Biology". He is recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is super entrepreneurial, founding three biotech companies since 2004 (one of them went public). His signatureartimesinin project development demonstrates how science, investment and philanthropy can converge to really tackle our world's biggest problems: this year, artimesinin from bacteria fermentation has gone into manufacturing phase and start distribute around 1 million doses per year.
JBEI is highly recognized by the industry and we have significant industrial/government connection, we are constantly visited by exceptional scientists, high officials from Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Fortune 500 oil and chemical companies, Venture Capitalists etc.
Our colleagues are super nice and friendly, and above all, they are all the go-to expert in our field carrying different backgrounds: If I cannot find a solution here, I doubt I can easily find a solution elsewhere.
The down side is:
JBEI located in Emeryville and although there is a shuttle to JBEI every 30min, it's painful having to travel back and forth every time.
This is really not trivial, I encourage you to do some trial visits to the lab. Right now, an F bus will take you close to the lab and I can let you into the building. In the future an LBNL shuttle will carry you directly to the JBEI front door.
JBEI is one of the LBNL campus, so we only take undergraduate researchers for course credit ( which means summer enrollment fee on your side...). There is a way to transfer the summer work to Fall credit, but it does take additional effort (totally doable though). One mechanism around this fee issue, is you may start meeting with me regularly during the summer and we go through some background literature reading, experimental design and computational work. We build up the team spirit along the summer while preparing you real solid for the coming wet lab in fall. This however, requires working throughout summer till at least next semester. A huge commitment on your side!
That's probably it.
For now, I encourage you to skim through the two papers.
a) Manufacturing Molecules Through Metabolic Engineering, by JD Keasling - 2010
b) High-Throughput Metabolic Engineering: Advances in Small-Molecule Screening and Selection, by JA Dietrich - 2010
They are highly relevant to my projects (1. Biosynthesis of Nitrogen Containing Bulk Chemicals; 2. Developing an E. coli Biosensor for Screening Lactams.)
I think they are classical review papers in our field that really gives people a grand vision.
The papers are probably both filled with nomenclatures, but don't be intimidated.
Even trying to go through it will be a very rewarding process. If you have any questions or want to talk about any specifics, my email is always available. If you want to schedule a visit to JBEI, let me know. I will accommodate a tour for you around the lab.
Thank you again for your time!
----------------------------------------------How to Get in---------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to my undergraduate training wiki: http://jingwei-labtraining.wikispaces.com/
I have a four week crash course to prepare you for the lab work.
This course is very general, so if you are contacting other labs of biological science nature, I am sure it will help as well.
If you are truly interested in joining our team: go through this crash course.
You can see how many effort you may need for each section in this 2013 Undergrad Traininggoogle document, this is also how I track your progress and recruit.
I am available all the time for questions of any kind. Feel free to report problems in this document as well, I am here to help! Once you finish the material for each week, contact me and I can go through some Q&A that are sort of testing your knowledge, but most importantly help you understand.
My phones, etc. contact is on the front page of the wiki.
Email me when you face questions, don't get stuck and try to figure out things yourself!
After that, we can sit for a cup of coffee to see if our chemistry matches. It's important that you know more about me as well: I have several undergraduates, if you are interested in talking to, I am happy to reference you as well.
Dear all,
Thank you all for coming during such late time in the evening and hear me talk about my research project.
As I mentioned, I am interested in looking for two undergrads to join for summer and possibly beyond.
I wish to make the recruitment process a rewarding experience for everyone who approached me. Basically I am trying to do some intro to our lab and "crash course of metabolic engineering". Before you ever decide to jump in and join our lab, I wish to go through these papers with you guys, at least give you a taste of what it feels like to be a metabolic engineer.
Hopefully along the way some of you might become interested enough in our field and get ready to roll up your sleeves and try something real.
I wish to describe our lab, Joint Bioenergy Institute a bit more, hopefully help you decide the pros and cons:
- Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) is definitely THE best place to work in under all academic circumstances. Its exceptional working environment (great view), huge fleet of supporting staffs (there are specialized people managing chemicals, lab supplies) and high quality in-house instruments (most of them are over 1 million dollars) belittles any labs on campus.
- Our CEO, Prof. Jay Keasling is one of the founding father of the field "Synthetic Biology". He is recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is super entrepreneurial, founding three biotech companies since 2004 (one of them went public). His signatureartimesinin project development demonstrates how science, investment and philanthropy can converge to really tackle our world's biggest problems: this year, artimesinin from bacteria fermentation has gone into manufacturing phase and start distribute around 1 million doses per year.
- JBEI is highly recognized by the industry and we have significant industrial/government connection, we are constantly visited by exceptional scientists, high officials from Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Fortune 500 oil and chemical companies, Venture Capitalists etc.
- Our colleagues are super nice and friendly, and above all, they are all the go-to expert in our field carrying different backgrounds: If I cannot find a solution here, I doubt I can easily find a solution elsewhere.
The down side is:- JBEI located in Emeryville and although there is a shuttle to JBEI every 30min, it's painful having to travel back and forth every time.
This is really not trivial, I encourage you to do some trial visits to the lab. Right now, an F bus will take you close to the lab and I can let you into the building. In the future an LBNL shuttle will carry you directly to the JBEI front door.That's probably it.
For now, I encourage you to skim through the two papers.
a) Manufacturing Molecules Through Metabolic Engineering, by JD Keasling - 2010
b) High-Throughput Metabolic Engineering: Advances in Small-Molecule Screening and Selection, by JA Dietrich - 2010
They are highly relevant to my projects (1. Biosynthesis of Nitrogen Containing Bulk Chemicals; 2. Developing an E. coli Biosensor for Screening Lactams.)
I think they are classical review papers in our field that really gives people a grand vision.
The papers are probably both filled with nomenclatures, but don't be intimidated.
Even trying to go through it will be a very rewarding process. If you have any questions or want to talk about any specifics, my email is always available.
If you want to schedule a visit to JBEI, let me know. I will accommodate a tour for you around the lab.
Thank you again for your time!
----------------------------------------------How to Get in---------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to my undergraduate training wiki: http://jingwei-labtraining.wikispaces.com/
I have a four week crash course to prepare you for the lab work.
This course is very general, so if you are contacting other labs of biological science nature, I am sure it will help as well.
If you are truly interested in joining our team: go through this crash course.
You can see how many effort you may need for each section in this 2013 Undergrad Traininggoogle document, this is also how I track your progress and recruit.
I am available all the time for questions of any kind.
Feel free to report problems in this document as well, I am here to help!
Once you finish the material for each week, contact me and I can go through some Q&A that are sort of testing your knowledge, but most importantly help you understand.
My phones, etc. contact is on the front page of the wiki.
Email me when you face questions, don't get stuck and try to figure out things yourself!
After that, we can sit for a cup of coffee to see if our chemistry matches. It's important that you know more about me as well: I have several undergraduates, if you are interested in talking to, I am happy to reference you as well.
--------------------------------FAQ------------------------------------------------------------
What kind of Undergrad I am looking for?
Time commitments and Summer Credit
My response for an Undergraduate's "Feedstocks for Biofuel Question"
Is Chem3A and Chem3B required? What if I haven't taken the course and don't have sufficient organic chemistry background?
After our first PCR failed, I discussed positive attitude towards frustrations in scientific research.